Magistrate Jeanette G. Brill joined with Magistrate David Malbin yesterday in criticizing police treatment of peddlers arrested in Coney Island.
She announced from the bench in Coney Island Court that she would ask Police Commissioner O’Ryan to conduct an investigation immediately into the alleged mistreatment of peddlers.
She declared that she would inform Mayor LaGuardia of the “barbaric, un-American treatment of children by police.” On Sunday the same situation was the subject of a scathing attack by Magistrate Malbin. He found a small room under the boardwalk where peddlers were detained for several hours before being taken to the station house.
“Wild animals in the zoo are better treated than the peddlers,” asserted Magistrate Brill yesterday.
John L. Schoenfeld, State Commissioner of Correction, sat on the bench as a guest while Magistrate Brill suspended the sentences of eighty-two peddlers. Fifteen of them she took into her chambers, had coffee and sandwiches brought for them, and suggested that they dictate statements to a stenographer describing their treatment at the hands of the police. She will forward these affidavits to the police commissioner.
One of the youths stated that when he had asked for a drink of water, a police officer told him, “If you yell for water again, I’ll give you the end of a rubber hose.”
Several of the peddlers stated that they were not permitted to communicate with worried parents and relatives.
Magistrate Brill asked the arresitng officers why they did not serve summonses rather than make arrests. The officers replied that the peddlers could not provide identification. However, several of the peddlers produced chauffeur and food-handling licenses which, Magistrate Brill said, were first rate identification.
Complaints have been received that an analogous situation exists in the North Bronx. Peddlers are arrested, sometimes early in the morning, it was alleged, held for several hours in a police signal station, transported to a station house, held all day without being provided with food or drink, and then taken to night court.
Police say that magistrates refuse to fine peddlers, and this is the only way they can discourage illegal peddling.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
